Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 33 – The essence of God – Justice. 1Co 3:15; 2:9; Col 3:25.



Class Outline:

Title: Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 33 - The essence of God - Justice. 1CO 3:15; 2:9; COL 3:25.

 

6. The essence of God part 2: Attributes that constitute God and are commuted to beings.

 

We have studied omniscience and righteousness and now we move on to justice, love, omnipotence, and truth.

 

Righteousness, justice, and love all combine to form God’s integrity and each of these has been commuted in a limited way to the creature created in God’s image.

 

The remainder that are commuted are omnipotence and veracity or truth.

 

G. Justice: The execution of what +R demands. In the trillions of decisions God has rendered, not one has ever been unfair or incorrect.

 

Thinking that my misery is a result of God reacting to my actions is like getting mad at the coffee table when I stub my toe in the dark or getting mad at the booze I drank every day because I have liver disease. God is righteous and opposition to that righteousness means that justice must act accordingly. And as we will hopefully clarify, the believer is dealt with in grace, which justice determined in EP to be the policy of all those who have believed in Christ, and so for the believer, justice and grace become very closely connected due to the propitiation of the Father by Christ’s cross.

 

Undeserved suffering is quite different than deserved suffering, however it is allowed by the justice of God, yet God has made divine provision for solutions by means of the problem solving devices.

 

While deserved suffering is ultimately for instruction in righteousness, undeserved suffering is an opportunity for the assets of God that were graciously given to the believer to shine, revealing God’s glory, power, and wisdom. Therefore undeserved suffering is a blessing to the positive believer.

 

And that brings us to blessing.

 

All believers were blessed in eternity past with the maximum amount of blessing, EPH 1:3-4.

 

Because of the work of Christ and the foreknowledge of God to be able to see who would believe in Him, blessing the believer with a maximum amount of blessing does not compromise God’s perfect integrity.

 

EPH 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

 

EPH 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

 

These include the blessing of undeserved suffering. The action of the aorist participle [has blessed us] proceeds the action of the main verb [chose or elected us], so we conclude that the first thing that God ever did for us was to bless us.

 

However, the believer can forfeit these blessings by rejecting God’s provisions of BD, FHS, PPOG.

 

1CO 3:10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it.

 

1CO 3:11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

 

1CO 3:12 Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,

 

1CO 3:13 each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.

 

1CO 3:14 If any man's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward.

 

1CO 3:15 If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.

 

Logistical grace - natural blessings. God’s highest and best - natural and supernatural blessings.

 

Saying no to the doctrine, the ministry of the Spirit, and the predesigned plan is the same as saying no to the supernatural blessings of God and so, the justice of God withholds them.

 

Wanting a whole bunch of awesome stuff in time and not wanting God’s transformation through doctrine, the Spirit, and the plan in order to be righteous, just, loving, wise, powerful, and know the one absolute truth, is incompatible. It is like a young man wanting to take over his father’s very successful business, but refusing to learn how the business works and how to run it successfully. He just wants riches and power and recognition and doesn’t care that he will most likely run it into the ground and destroy decades of his father’s long nights and hard work.

 

When it comes to the CWL the local assembly has been graciously given by God as the classroom for the education in God’s wisdom, power, and protocols for the plan of God in the CA.

 

You might be fooling others by playing church, and in ignorance you might be fooling yourself (greater darkness), but you are never fooling the eternal, omniscient God.

 

PSA 44:20-21

If we had forgotten the name of our God,

Or extended our hands to a strange god;

Would not God find this out?

For He knows the secrets of the heart.

 

The indwelling +R is all that is needed for the natural blessings of God, which we term logistical grace blessings, but growing up spiritually is what is needed for the supernatural blessings from God. God honors the decision of the believer who says no to the supernatural things and settles for the natural or earthly only. 

 

There is a certain capacity of the heart (right lobe of the soul) that is needed to have the capacity for the supernatural blessings, the things which:

 

1CO 2:9 but just as it is written,

"Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,

And which have not entered the heart of man,

All that God has prepared for those who love Him."

 

This is quoted from:

ISA 64:4

For from of old they have not heard nor perceived by ear,

Neither has the eye seen a God besides Thee,

Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

 

It did not escape me that Paul substituted love Him for waits for Him under the direct inspiration of God the HS. That is because the one who loves Him will wait for Him because he knows that God’s timing, under His perfect JusticeGrace is perfect.

 

“I will wait for the One that I love.” (1CO 2:9 cf. ISA 64:4)